


Haunted Heart

by Val_Creative



Category: Disney - All Media Types, Disney Princesses, Sleeping Beauty (1959), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Being Lost, Blood and Injury, Candles, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Forests, Ghosts, Horror, Identity Reveal, Movie: Sleeping Beauty (1959), Past Character Death, Possession, Post-Tangled (2010), Prophetic Dreams, Revenge, Supernatural Elements, Thunderstorms, Unresolved Romantic Tension, seances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26791204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: Aurora often dreams of a tower-room.
Relationships: Aurora/Rapunzel (Disney)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 29
Collections: Bring Your Own Boos 2020





	Haunted Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatScottishShipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatScottishShipper/gifts).



*

Aurora often dreams of a tower-room. 

She doesn't recall who lives in it, or if anyone ever did, but the stones were immense and covered in sunshine yellow and pink and a deep hue of violet. Maplewood banisters and stairs flecked wet in prismatic inks. When she looked up, the ceiling's beams formed a dome.

Aurora doesn't know what marblestone is, but she dreams it sitting above the empty, blackened fireplace. 

Flora nods briskly as she listens to Aurora describe the tower-room, lifting her nose into the air and tipping the kettle over a cup.

"I cannot say I am surprised by this," she admits. "You've always been such a peculiar child since we've raised you."

"Sensitive to every little thing," Merryweather huffs.

"If ever something were wrong, you knew." Fauna stirs the cooking pot, grinning. "You knew where to find injured animals in the woods and convinced us to nurse them back to health. My! I've lost count how many fragile-hearted birds you've put on this table! I was so busy!"

Merryweather clucks her tongue, waving her glittering blue wand aimlessly to enchant the straw-broom.

_"Dirty beasts…"_

Aurora frowns, her cheeks pinkening.

"If living in the woods makes one a dirty beast," she insists. "Then are you not?"

Fauna bursts out laughing, nearly upending the pot. Warm tears moisten her eyes. Flora's mouth quirks up as she scolds Aurora gently, rubbing Aurora's back and shooing her out of the kitchen as Merryweather's wailing cry heightens.

*

She wishes to return to her life as Briar Rose. 

Living happily in the Woodcutter's Cottage and doing her chores and picking berries. This will be the last time she can pick berries on a nighttime walk, a gloomy-eyed Aurora supposes. She absently pets her magnificently golden curls 

Her aunties tell her the royal carriage will escort them to safety.

Aurora gathers up her basket of dark, plump elderberries, reaching into another shrub full of mulberries. Merryweather liked them best. She winces, grazing her fingertips across the brambles, cutting them open. Bright blood wells on Aurora's fair skin.

"Golly," Aurora mutters under her breath. She's never blasphemed, of course, but this wound throbs all the way up to her wrist. 

Perhaps it's best to leave.

*

_Do not wander so far…_

She can hear Flora's stern voice in her ear.

_It is dangerous…_

Thunder rumbles over Aurora's head. She flees towards the mountainside, where the falls meets the long, winding river. Aurora uses her purple shawl to hide her head from drenching rain. Nothing looks familiar, but Aurora knows… she _must_ go this way.

Peering up through rain-dripping treetops, Aurora glimpses a tower. The roof sloped low and as purple as Aurora's shawl.

 _Her_ tower.

She hurries into the clearing, abandoning her mud-filthy shawl and touching her hands upon the stones. Yes, these stones. They're weathered gray and cracked and with no stain of colorful paint oils. Aurora gazes up, blinking out rainfall. Her lips parting.

From the opened, stone window, there's the gleam of candlelight. It's so high up. Perhaps higher than clouds.

The night-storm won't pass until morning, Aurora thinks. She's gotten lost.

She needs to seek shelter.

Tower-stones and the ground around Aurora seems firm. No secret door wreathed in moss. No false entrances. That's when Aurora notices the rope hanging under the window. She grasps it, bemused by the texture. Like bundles of hair knotted up.

Nevertheless, Aurora climbs. Her bare, muddied feet careens on rain-slick stone before Aurora jams her toes in for leverage.

*

Whether it's several minutes or eternity, Aurora makes it to the tower's window. 

She steals herself in. What remains of the rope clatters against the steel-ring bolted inside the window. It _is_ hair, Aurora realizes in dismay. It's so long that Aurora couldn't begin to count every inch. She quivers, retreating further in towards the candle.

"Hello?" Aurora murmurs. She circles the ashy floor. "I do beg your pardon… I found myself lost in this storm, and I… hello?"

The candle nearby flutters.

Aurora goes to it, curiously seizing it with her bloodied fingers. The warm wax mingles with red. 

"… Is someone there?"

One more flutter. Aurora narrows her eyes as the orangeish-yellow flame tilts left.

_Yes._

She doesn't understand how she knows so quickly, but it's an echo. Deep in Aurora's mind. 

"Whom am I speaking with?" 

The candle's flame expands and crackles audibly.

"That's too difficult of a question for you, isn't it," Aurora muses. Her golden-brown curls plaster wet to her skull. Her eyelashes clump together from dampness. She senses whomever this is to be shy, but willful. "Are you a good spirit?"

The candle does nothing.

"A _bad_ spirit?" Aurora questions, and there's still no indication of an answer. 

_"Don't you know what you are?"_

Flamelight sputters.

"My apologies. I had not meant to upset you." Aurora's pale pink lips thin together. "Have… have I been dreaming of you?"

The candle gusts out as if blown.

She startles, and somehow still, Aurora can see the young, round-faced woman in front of her.

A velvet dress of rose-and-lavender. Its fabric ripped. Her brown hair chopped into frightful hunks. Her eyes green as the glen.

Translucent flesh.

Aurora stares enraptured as the other woman leans in. Their lips brush. One of her hands hovers over Aurora's jaw as if caressing.

Aurora cannot feel it. She cannot feel a damned thing as a multitude of pale ghostly tendrils slip into Aurora, filling her nostrils and mouth and the corners of her blackish-brown eyes now glowing an eerie green.

_It is dangerous…_

_Princess…_

*

  
Eugene's bones crumpled into dust.

So long ago.

Mother Gothel vanished after harming him.

Rapunzel has the memory of clawing her furiously, screaming and banging her fists against Mother Gothel's breast.

The horrid old witch — once her guardian and Rapunzel's whole world — plunged her dagger into Rapunzel's heart for defying her, for allowing Eugene to cut her precious and magical hair. She plaited Rapunzel's non-magical, brown hair into her rope to escape.

Rapunzel stretches out Aurora's hands and fingers, calmly examining the blood.

_Now… to find Mother._

*

**Author's Note:**

> I like this concept of these two. They are both are the "lost" princesses raised by women and Aurora was hidden as a peasant for her safety (and didn't want to be a princess) and Rapunzel was hidden as a peasant to be taken advantage of (and she wanted to know who she was/be a princess). Both of them, in canon, are known for walking around barefoot. Both of them have songs about dreams "I've Got A Dream" for Rapunzel and "Once Upon A Dream" for Aurora. That's just interesting parallels to me. Two sides of the same coin. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Please tell me if you have any thoughts on this!


End file.
